Florida’s offense has been on a slow but steady upward trajectory since the start of the season where they spent some challenging games searching for open shots but against Kentucky, a team that hasn’t looked defensively for most of the year, Florida looked discombobulated on their way to a disappointing offensive performance. A big reason the offense sputtered was Kentucky’s impressive pick and roll defense with the combination of Ashton Hagans and Nick Richards completely neutralizing Florida’s duo of Andrew Nembhard and Kerry Blackshear Jr. Florida logged 27 pick and roll possessions, ultimately netting 20 points equaling 0.74 points per possession. That number isn’t flattering, and it doesn’t even factor in the possessions where Florida attempted to run a pick and roll only to have Hagans deny the screen and force the ball back out before the Gators could get a look at the rim.
While Kentucky was extraordinarily effective with their pick and roll defense, this isn’t a one-off night where the Gators have struggled to generate offense out of the pick and roll, and it’s a concerning trend.
Through the first five games of the SEC season, a stretch where they played their best basketball of the year, the Gators were at over 1.1 points per possession in the pick and roll making it one of their most effective actions. Andrew Nembhard and Kerry Blackshear Jr. were the two players responsible for this success as Nembhard’s ability to get a defender on his hip and force defenses to help stressed opponents and when they scrambled to guard the paint he’d almost always make the right read, whether it was to bounce the ball into Blackshear on the roll or hit Keyontae Johnson or Noah Locke for an open jumper.
What has changed? It has partially been personnel, something that I have written about at length and probably don’t need to get into at length but I will happily summarize here. In short—Florida’s best basketball of the season was played when this lineup started games.
Andrew Nembhard
Noah Locke
Keyontae Johnson
Kerry Blackshear Jr.
Omar Payne
This lineup was at 1.63 points per possession offensively and 0.65 points per possession defensively, making it far and away Florida’s most effective statistical lineup and they did it against other team’s starting units during a stretch where Florida played their best basketball of the season.
A big reason that lineup was so successful offensively was their ability to run the pick and roll. Instead of running a spread ball screen like you see so often in modern basketball (where the three players not involved in the pick and roll all space the floor behind the three-point line) this lineup used a style of ball screen offense popularized in European basketball, where Omar Payne would stand near the hoop and seal his defender while Nembhard and Blackshear would run a pick and roll. Payne’s man would be the primarily help defender and since he was sealed there would be no one to help on the pick and roll and that meant layups for Nembhard if he got all the way to the hoop or an easy finger roll for Blackshear if Nembhard dished it up.
Now that Florida is playing more of a modern spread ball screen offense the returns haven’t been quite as good. While they were at 1.1 points per possession in the first five games of the SEC season with the five players I described playing the European ball screen style, they haven’t come close to matching it recently with the spread ball screen.
Remember how the Gators were only at 0.74 points per possession on pick and rolls against Kentucky? Well, while that number doesn’t look good, you could say it’s predictable because in the last 10 games since they have been at only 0.77 points per possession. Overall, they are at 0.83 points per possession on the season, making them a below-average pick and roll team after starting the SEC season as one of the most effective.
While the personnel shift from the starting lineup featuring Omar Payne switching to Scottie Lewis seems to have played a role, it’s not the only reason Florida’s pick and roll attack seems to have slowed.
If you watch Florida basketball games, this won’t be a surprise to you but Andrew Nembhard is their best pick and roll ball handler. While his efficiency has started to dip with the team’s overall dip in pick and roll productivity he is still at 0.9 points per possession in the pick and roll. Even though he has appeared to be Florida’s biggest threat in the pick and roll there has been an interesting trend—they have started giving him less and less pick and roll opportunities.
For starters, it’s important to note that Florida’s overall number of pick and rolls has stayed steady throughout the SEC season, around 29 per game. However, even though Florida’s total number of pick and roll possessions has stayed roughly the same, Nembhard is getting less of those plays ran for him. Here is the number of pick and rolls he ran in Florida’s first five games of the SEC season where the Gators were rolling and then the subsequent 10 games (obviously the SEC games, but the Baylor game is included as well).
Alabama: 25
South Carolina: 28
Missouri: 13
Ole Miss: 28
Auburn: 19
Average: 23
LSU: 18
Baylor: 15
Mississippi State: 14
Vanderbilt: 12
Georgia: 22
Ole Miss: 15
Texas A&M: 10
Vanderbilt: 7
Arkansas: 17
Kentucky: 17
Average: 15
That is a staggering difference in the number of pick and rolls ran for Nembhard and considering the points per possession as a team between those first five games where they were at 1.1 points possession and the next 10 when they went for 0.77 you have to gather that there is correlation.
Since Nembhard is getting less of these plays called for him even though the team is still using a similar number of them overall there has been an obvious change—more players other than Nembhard are getting called upon to run these sets. How has that gone? Here are the numbers for pick and roll derived offensive for Florida’s other ball handlers, including their total number plays ran in parenthesis:
Ques Glover (103): 0.85 PPP
Tre Mann (75): 0.65 PPP
Noah Locke (58): 0.5 PPP
Scottie Lewis (41): 0.66 PPP
Keyontae Johnson (32): 1.0 PPP
As you can see, the Gators have a few ball handlers that struggle in pick and roll offense but some of them have gotten a lot more action recently. Ques Glover, while being a good individual creator out of the pick and roll has struggled with turnovers in other areas of the game which have kept him on the bench and Keyontae Johnson, even though he has been effective in small sample size, hasn’t been given a lot of chances to use ball screens.
The players who have gotten their pick and roll use ramped up recently are Tre Mann and Noah Locke. Mann has earned more minutes with his defense and shot making recently, but unfortunately he hasn’t yet found success and a pick and roll ball handler. A scorer through and through he’s someone who is going to need to learn to be effective in these scenarios but that hasn’t yet been the case. A lot of his minutes have still come with Andrew Nembhard along side of him and the Gators would be wise to continue to give Nembhard pick and roll duties while Mann can be a spacer.
Noah Locke’s pick and roll possessions have been largely a result of the Gators trying to get him open looks, especially since he was on a 51% three-point shooting heater throughout the conference season. Unfortunately, trying to get him shots with a ball screen wasn’t a particularly effective strategy. As you can see from the numbers, he isn’t an effective pick and roll ball handler and he hasn’t been an effective deep shooter off the dribble. Locke is currently shooting 19% on threes off the dribble, so the strategy of using ball screens to open up shots for him isn’t a statistically sound one. This was the case with Locke last year as a pick and roll ball handler, and it’s still an element of the game he needs to work on to become successful.
It has been a relatively small sample size but Keyontae Johnson has been productive as a ball handler and using him in more ball screen actions could be a wise decision, especially when he’s starting as a small ball power forward. The players guarding him probably aren’t going to be used to playing ball screen defense in that role, and Johnson has the dribbling ability and passing vision to punish defenses once he gets penetration.
Florida’s ball screen offense has been on a downward trajectory and there are a couple of ways they could reverse it. For starters, they could go to the Euro ball screen more often than the spread ball screen, though that would require them to play some of the bigger lineups that the coaching staff has gone away from. Another option would be run more ball screens for Ques Glover or Keyontae Johnson when Andrew Nembhard is off the floor. You’d love for Nembhard to run every ball screen but obviously that isn’t feasible so they need to get some production from other players. Glover has had some difficulties staying on the floor, understandably given his turnover problems, but when he does get out there his ability to attack could be utilized. Going to Keyontae Johnson as a ball handler is an option that makes a lot of sense. He has been one of Florida’s best offensive players this year and he’s someone who doesn’t get many sets ran for him, even when he’s hot. This would be a way to get the ball in his hands more often, and he has shown the ability to make quality decisions when he has taken ball screens.
The ball screen is a fixture of modern basketball and when Florida has been at their best it has been a key element of their offense. For them to get back to scoring at a high level they’ll need to get the pick and roll cooking again and the framework to do it is there. The sample size of what has been effective and hasn’t worked as well is there, and sticking to what has worked could be valuable down the stretch as the Gators look to stay near the top of the SEC and make a postseason run.